{"id":368,"date":"2004-08-01T12:35:43","date_gmt":"2004-08-01T16:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.test.bradblog.com\/?p=368"},"modified":"2004-08-01T12:35:43","modified_gmt":"2004-08-01T16:35:43","slug":"home-of-the-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=368","title":{"rendered":"Home of the Free?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Updating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bradfriedman.com\/BradBlog\/archives\/00000364.htm\">a previous item<\/a> on the Bush-Cheney campaign requiring a signed pledge of <i>loyalty<\/i> to George W. Bush before allowing voters to attend a Dick Cheney campaign event&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Drudge is finally running <a href=\"http:\/\/www.casperstartribune.net\/articles\/2004\/07\/30\/news\/wyoming\/63b4fcb928fe8e6987256ee10054e715.txt\" target=\"_blank\">a piece<\/a> on this now that it&#8217;s being suggested that &#8220;some <i>Democrats<\/i>&#8221; were required to sign loyalty oaths.<\/p>\n<p>Am I just a pinko, commie, terrorist Freedom Hater if I think that shouldn&#8217;t really make any damn difference&#8230;here in <i>America<\/i>?! The story doesn&#8217;t exactly inform us how campaign officials knew who were Democrats and who weren&#8217;t, and even goes on to say that &#8220;Some Democrats who are Bush supporters were welcomed without signing anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The story also does not explain how the Bush campaign would know which Democrats were Bush supporters and which weren&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>But read on&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">Vietnam veteran Michael Ortiz y Pino said he refused to sign the pledge and was refused tickets.<\/p>\n<p>Ortiz y Pino said he was asked if he associated with veterans, pro-life, gun rights or teacher groups.<\/p>\n<p>Neither man wanted to give driver&#8217;s license numbers but did so.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I said why do you need that?&#8221; Ortiz y Pino said.<\/p>\n<p>A campaign worker, he said, replied: &#8220;Secret Service stuff.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>PLEASE, is there any conservative out there who can explain to me how this is what you are looking for in a &#8220;conservative&#8221; nominee for <i>President<\/i> of the United States (of <i>America!<\/i>)??<\/p>\n<p>Once again&#8230;here is what the &#8220;pledge&#8221; says. The one you must sign to see your Vice-President speak during a Presidential Campaign:<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">&#8220;I, (full name) &#8230; do herby (sic) endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States.&#8221; It later adds that, &#8220;In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p>Dan Foley, of the Bush Campaign, explains&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">&#8220;The endorsement pledges, he said, were for screening purposes, not for any advertisement listing names of Democrats who support Bush.<\/div>\n<p>Oh, well that&#8217;s a relief! <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the story is now linked on Drudge, so it should be reported by the Mainstream Media shortly. As long as it hasn&#8217;t been taken it down by Monday.<\/p>\n<p><b>UPDATE<\/b>: A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/elex\/205176elex07-31-04.htm\" target=\"_blank\">follow-up piece<\/a> from the <i>Albuquerque Journal<\/i> would seem to defy the &#8220;some Democrats&#8221; report which claimed that it was just people who called from &#8220;a line that self-identified as ACT, America Coming Together, an activist group that supports Kerry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As well, it quotes a Republican National Committee spokesperson, Yier Shi, explaining the policy for restricting the event &#8212; at a <i>public school gymnasium!<\/i> &#8212; only to the loyal ones:<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">   Democrats, independents and others were welcome to attend the speech, he said\u2014 as long as they like Bush and Cheney.<br \/>\n   And people should understand that Cheney is visiting New Mexico in the role of a candidate for re-election, Shi said, explaining that Republicans are treating the trip as a political campaign visit and not as an official visit of the vice president.<br \/>\n   &#8220;The argument that you&#8217;re an American and you have a right to see the vice president\u2014 you can when he comes to New Mexico on an official visit,&#8221; Shi said. &#8220;On this visit, he&#8217;s Dick Cheney, a candidate for vice president and he happens to also be the vice president.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p>Got that distinction?<\/p>\n<p>This is a campaign in big &#8212; very big &#8212; trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updating a previous item on the Bush-Cheney campaign requiring a signed pledge of loyalty to George W. Bush before allowing voters to attend a Dick Cheney campaign event&#8230; Drudge is finally running a piece on this now that it&#8217;s being suggested that &#8220;some Democrats&#8221; were required to sign loyalty oaths. Am I just a pinko, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=368"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}